Beer made by artificial intelligence tastes better than a normal pint, study suggests

Beer made by artificial intelligence (AI) is tastier than a normal pint, a study suggests.

A trained computer system can take average existing beers and elevate them to an elite drink, data show, by knowing exactly what chemicals to add.

A five-year project to analyse, taste and document the flavour profiles and chemical composition of 250 beers created a vast and detailed catalogue of what makes each Belgian beer unique.

The tastes were provided by a panel of 15 experts and the chemical composition came from lab analysis.

AI algorithm developed

An AI algorithm was developed that combined this information, as well as the opinions of 180,000 public reviews on the RateBeer app.

Computer models were then able to predict accurately what a beer would taste like based on a range of chemicals of different concentrations.

Flavours included the usual descriptors of a beer, such as hoppy and malty, as well as the more obscure, such as barnyard/horse, anise, bread and banana.

Prof Kevin Verstrepen, the director of the VIB-KU Leuven Centre for Microbiology and the Leuven Institute for Beer Research, led the project and tested out the AI beer connoisseur by asking it to improve a standard beer.

‘The score jumped quite nicely’

The anonymous beer was “a well-known and popular commercial blond ale beer”, which was around 6.5 per cent ABV and scored average for enjoyment in taste tests.

“After the modifications suggested by the model, the score jumped quite nicely and was among the best beers in the set,” Prof Verstrepen told The Telegraph.

“Moreover, it was a statistically significant change, which is not so trivial in aroma science because even with trained professional tasters, the ratings that humans give are always a bit noisy – tasting is not an exact science.

“So, to get statistical significance, one really needs a big jump that is noticed by almost all tasters.”

Also effective on alcohol-free beer

The Belgian scientists also tested the system on an alcohol-free beer to see whether the system was able to make low ABV options more enjoyable, and found it was effective.

“We believe that most progress can be made with the zero alcohol beers,” Prof Verstrepen said.

“We are now working on tailoring the models to try and generate superior low- and zero-alcohol beers.”

The scientists initially wanted to take human biases out of beer perception and create a way to tell the true flavour of a beer, without human subjectivity.

‘A Herculean effort’

Each beer was also evaluated on a set of 50 criteria by the 15 experts, with Dr Miguel Roncoroni, who led the chemical analyses and tasting panel, calling the project “a Herculean effort”.

“We began the project with less than 100 beers, and quickly realised this would not be enough to capture Belgium’s incredible beer diversity, so we ended up analysing 250 beers,” he added.

The augmentation of a commercial beer with AI recommendations opens up possibilities for a future of AI-curated lagers hitting the shelves of supermarkets and being brewed for pubs.

“We already received input from brewers during the study, and some are definitely eager to use this new knowledge as a tool,” Prof Verstrepen said.

“I bet that AI will gradually get integrated in food science in general, including brewing, just like in most other parts of technology.

“Some brewers are more sceptical, fearing that this takes away from their craft or would result in only a few ‘standard’, bland beers.

“I want to stress that this is absolutely not the case – people are all different and each of us has their preference, so there simply is no ‘one beer fits all’.

“But we can use new insights and tools to make existing beers even better, tweaking them.”

Healthier snacks

The researchers hope to apply their comprehensive method and AI approach to make other types of foods taste nicer, specifically healthier snacks such as vegan foods and low alcohol drinks.

“The biggest gains are to be made with new products, like the zero alcohol beers, but also other foods, for example tasty and sustainable vegetarian alternatives for animal-based products,” Prof Verstrepen said.

“Here, too, similar methods can be used to tweak the taste of these to convert even the most diehard meat lovers.”

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.